Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

PSYCHE

PSYCHE

soul /mind,breath , principle of life, life

LOGOS

study/reason

PSYCHOLOGY

• Scientific study of behavior and mental processes/thought.

• Psychology is unique in that it is the science of understanding individuals—animals as well as people.

SCIENTIFIC

• Objective and Answer: Based on observable facts/data and well-described methods

BEHAVIOR

Action or response of a person or animal

BEHAVIOR

Response/Reaction from a stimulus

STIMULUS

Energy comes from the environment

CLASSIFICATIONS OF BEHAVIOR

Covert vs. Overt

Normal vs. Abnormal

Learned vs. Unlearned

Verbal vs. Non- verbal

SIMPLE SMILE

• The person is not participating in any outgoing activity

•  A person is smiling to himself

• typically a nonsense smile when a person is with themselves happy being alone

UPPER SMILE

• The upper teeth is shown/usually eye to eye contact between individuals

• Greeting smile

BROAD SMILE/DUCHENNE SMILE 

• Associated during play, laughing

• Both upper and lower teeth are exposed

• Occurs in situations of pleasurable excitement

PAUL EKMAN

• American Psychologist who is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relationship to facial expressions. 

OBLONG SMILE

• The person has to be polite and pretending

LIP-IN SMILE

• Feels subordinate 

• Commonly seen in shy individuals

THOUGHTS

• mental conditions (ideas, opinion/attitudes, and beliefs) about ourselves and the world around us 

MENTAL CONDITIONS

ideas, opinion, attitude, and beliefs

FEELINGS

• subjective self-contained experiences (can be biased), evaluative (judging), and independent of sensations/thoughts (can be pleasant vs. unpleasant)

SENSATION

the process of perceiving through our senses/stimulation of sensory receptors

SENSORY RECEPTORS

sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch

PERCEPTION

• the way sensory information is organized, interpreted, and consciously erxperienced (by the brain)

MEMORY

• specific information or representation of past experience

DREAM

• rich array of sensory.

• Motor, emotional experiences that occur during sleep

MOTIVE: 

a specific physiological or psychological state of arousal tyhat directs an organism’s energies toward a specific goal

GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY

• Description

• Explanation

• Prediction

• Control

DESCRIPTION

• Answers the question ? what.

• Psychologist are always asked to say something about an individual (traits, character, personality, behaviors, etc)

EXPLANATION

• alks about the ? why.

• Causes & factors

• Psychologists attempt to go beyond the obvious and explain why people act the way they do

PREDICTION

• By analyzing past behavior, psychologist aim to predict and anticipate how a certain behavior will appear again in the future

• Outcome or consequences

CONTROL

• To decrease negative behaviors and increase positive behavior (treatment of mental illnesses and enhancing well-being, etc)

• Prevent or give solutions

FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

• Socrates

• Plato

• Aristotle

SOCRATES

• Dualism; self-knowledge and self understanding— which are relevant in the field of theraphy and psychological research.

• Two realities: the body (Physical) and the soul (psyche)

• Principle: “Know thy self”

PLATO

• Student of Socrates

• Expanded Psyche of Socrates

• Three parts of the psyche: Physical appetite (basic biological needs of man: hunger, thirst, sexual desire), spirit/ passion (basic emotions: love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness) & reason (highest, divine essence that let us think deeply. Wisdom, choices) 

• If physical appetite and spirit/passion are fighting, reason is there to mediate it

ARISTOTLE

• Student of Plato

• Tabula rasa (blank state at birth and as we grow we learn through experiences, we write our life) & hylomorphism & moderation is key to happiness

  • The mind begins as this, onto which experience writes the contents of the mind

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

- deals with clinical assessment, diagnosis and the treatment of mental disorders.

COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY

• a counseling psychologist works with normal or moderately maladjusted individuals.

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

study of the principles of development from birth to old age (physical, social, cognitive and emotional dev.)

CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY

involves in selecting, obtaining and using products & services to satisfy needs and desires.

PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY

• Personality research addresses questions such as whether our traits and dispositions change or stay the same from infancy to childhood and adulthood

• study of individual differences and the development of personality theories

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

• concerned with teaching-learning situation and conducting studies for the improvement of measurement and evaluation of educational programs.

• This field also attempts to understand special populations of students, such as the academically gifted and those with special needs.

  
  

INDUSTRIAL OR ORGANIZATIONAL (I/O) PSYCHOLOGY

• deals with the application of psychological principles and research methods in the workplace.

• The industrial side involves matching employees to their jobs and uses psychological principles and methods to select employees and evaluate job performance. Sometimes referred to as

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

• involves the use of experimental methods and designs in establishing causal relationship between variables.

BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

• deals with the relationship of the nervous system and human behavior

PSYCHOMETRICS

• devoted to testing, measurement, assessment of psychological variables

HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY

• study of cognitive, affective, behavioral. And interpersonal factors affecting health and illness 

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

• considers the real or imagined presence of others influences through, feeling, and behavior

• Why is someone less likely to help a person in need when there are many people around than when there is no one else around?

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY

• studies the influence of psychological processes on political behavior and the effect of the political system on the mental processes and behavior of individuals

CROSS CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

• deals with how culture affect behavior

ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

• deals with the relationship between humans and the environment

ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY

• The practice of Psychology has deeper roots in human history than does the science of psychology.

• The foundations for psychology as a science date back to the ancient Greeks, and the modern science of psychology originated in the 1870s (Robinson, 1995). First, we consider the practice of psychology, that is, clinical psychology.

PREHISTORIC VIEWS [STONE AGE 7000-50,000 YEARS AGO]

• Most prehistoric cultures had medicine men or women, known as shamans, who treated the possessed by driving out demons with elaborate rituals, such as exorcisms, incantations, and prayers.

TREPHINATION

Drilling a small hole in a person’s skull, usually less than an ince in diameter; an attempt to heal a brain injury; to release the spirits and demons they believed possessed the afflicted person

ANCIENT VIEWS [AROUND 2600 BCE]

• The ancient Chinese, also Egyptians and Greeks moved away from supernatural explanations of psychological disorders toward natural and physiological explanations and sought natural explanations for psychological disorders.  

• Made connections between a person’s bodily organs and emotions

• Egyptians apparently used narcotics to treat pain

HIPPOCRATES (460-377 BCE)

• Greek Physician, first to write about a man suffering from phobia of heights — ACROPHOBIA

MEDIEVAL TO EARLY MODERN VIEWS [400 TO 1400 CE]

• Psychological disorders were again attributed to supernatural causes

• People were thought to be possessed by demons, spirits, and the devil—not by physical disorders

FLOAT TEST:

• The woman’s hands and feet were tied, and she was thrown into a lake or river. If she floated, she had to be guilty because only the devil could make someone float; if she sank, she was innocent. 

Asylums

• first facilities for the mentally ill, were built throughout Europe during witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries (St, Mary of Bethlehem in London, England). In 1547, it was designated by Henry VIII as a hospital for the insane

• Patients were put in windowless and filthy rooms and were chained and shackled to the walls

MODERN VIEWS

• The last decades of the 1800s saw the emergence of the first truly modern view of psychological disorders—the idea that they are simply one form of illness and should be treated as medical conditions with appropriate diagnosis and therapy.

EMIL KRAEPELIN

• German psychiatrist in 1880s to 1890s collected data on various kinds of psychological disorders and began systematically classifying and diagnosing them

• DEMENTIA PRAECOX

• First to distinguish schizophrenia from the mood disorders of melancholia (depression) and manic depression (bipolar disorder)

DEMENTIA PRAECOX

premature dementia which was latered changed to schizophrenia: major thought disorder known previously as “split mind”

SIGMUND FREUD

• around the 20th century in Austria, he developed a form of therapy called

  • PSYCHOANALYSIS: clinical approach to understanding and treating psychological disorders.

PSYCHOANALYSIS

• Assumes that the unconscious mind is the most powerful force behind thought and behavior and that dreams have meaning and are the most direct route to the unconscious mind

• It also assumes that our experiences during childhood are a powerful force in developing our adult personality.

PHILOSOPHY OF EMPIRICISM

• How do human beings create knowledge?

• Nature of knowledge

JOHN LOCKE

• Established the view that knowledge and thoughts come from experience and observations, a point of view known as. EMPIRICISM. 

• Tabula Rasa

 PSYCHOPHYSICS OF HUMAN PERCEPTION

• PSYCHOLOGY OF PHYSICAL SENSATIONS

• The starting point for empiricism is that we know and experience the world through our five senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching.

• mind consists only of what we sense, then understanding the senses will lead to a direct understanding of the mind.

ERNST WEBER (1795-1878)

• The first research in perception laid the groundwork for psychophysics.

• Investigated the smallest change in weight or length that people could discern

GUSTAV FECHNER (1801-1889) 

• Weber’s mentor

• Realization that one could study the psychological and physical worlds

• Coined the term “psychophysics” 

HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ (1821-1894)

• Made important contributions to the study of memory, physiology, color-vision, and laws of conservation in physics, and to music theory, meteorology, and geometry. 

• he was the first to calculate the speed of a nerve impulse at about 90 feet per second.

G. STANLEY HALL (1844-1924)

• Founder of the American Psychological Association (APA) and president in 1892

• Started the first scientific journal in American psychology “The American Journal of Psychology”

FRANCIS CECIL SUMNER (1895-1954)

• The first African American to earn a PhD in psychology (1920)

• Haired the psychology department at Harvard University where he researched equality and justice.

MARY WHITON CALKINS (1863-1930)

• First female president of APA in 1905

• Taught at wellesley college and conducted research on dreaming, gender issues, and self image. 

STRUCTURALISM AND FUNCTIONALISM

• The field of psychology was divided over whether it was more important to student the elements or the functions behind human thought and behavior.

• Focus on elements of mind led to the school of thought known as structuralism

• Focus on the functions of the mind led to the school of thought known as functionalism.

STRUCTURALISM

• breaking down experience into its elemental parts is the best way to understand thought and behavior.

• atoms of the mind

• The mind is like a compound that can be broken down into pieces of elements

• His study is mainly focused on knowing how people consciously experience the world and in order for us to know the world, we have to identify  the parts of the conscious experience of human beings

  • Detailed analysis of experience as it happened provided the most accurate glimpse into the workings of the human mind

INTROSPECTION

• the examination of one’s own emotional state and mental processes as a major method of data collection

• we can distinguish the different elements of the human mind through STRUCTURALISM

• For example, structuralists, like chemists describing elements, would not describe a peach as “a good peach” but rather would describe their experience with the peach as sweet, round, slightly orange, fuzzy, wet, and juicy.

FUNCTIONALISM

• Atomistic model of the mind is wrong because the conscious experience is continuously ever changing which cannot be captured.

• CONTRADICTED STRUCTURALISM

• influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

  • It was better to look at why the mind worked the way it did rather than to describe its parts.

  • “Why do people think, feel, or perceive, and how did these abilities come to be?”

  • WE USED OUR MINDS TO SOLVE ISSUES

WILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910)

• Founder of Functionalism

• The Father of American Psychology. One of Harvard’s illustrious professors who taught anatomy and physiology then psychology. (1842 – 1910) 

BEHAVIORISM

• CLAIM: To make psychology as a science, it should study overt behavior

• Psychological phenomenon starts with a stimulus and ends with a response

• An extreme form of environmentalism, the view that all behavior comes from experience interacting with the world. 

HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

• Theory of psychology that focuses on personal growth and meaning as a way of reaching one’s highest potential.

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

• Belief that psychology must focus on studying, understanding, and promoting healthy and positive psychological functioning.

• Importance of studying well-being from a scientific standpoint

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

• MAX WERTHEIMER (1912)

• FREDERICK BARTLETT (1886-1969)

• theory of psychology that maintains that we perceive things as wholes rather than as a compilation of parts.

• a school of thought concerned with the organization of mental processes. 

• Processing of entire patterns & configurations not as separate parts/ components

LAW OF FIGURE & GROUND

• ability to distinguish an object from its background

PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

• biophysical

• psychodynamic

• behavioral

• cognitive

• humanistic

• socio-cultural

• evolutionary

BIOPSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

• Study of the physiological mechanisms in the brain nervous system that organize and control behavior

• Focus may be at various levels 

  • Individual neurons

  • Areas of the brain

  • Specific functions like eating, emotion, or learning

PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHODYNAMIC

• dynamics of interaction of forces lying deep within the mind: unconscious thoughts, impulses and desires (sex & aggression) 

• dream interpretation and uncovering the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and impulses as a main form of treatment of neurosis and mental illness

BEHAVIORISM-LEARNING

• John B. Watson 

• If you want to focus on behavior, focus only on behavior not hypothetical and uunobservable internals states—thoughts, feelings, drives, or motives. 

• For every stimulus, there is a response

HUMANISTIC-PERSPECTIVE

• Humansistic and positive psychologists assumes that people strive toward meaning, groweth, well-being, happiness, and psychological health

COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

• How is knowledge acquired, organized, remembered, and used to guide behavior? 

• Utilizes the individual’s mental processes, his thoughts, beliefs and ideas.

SOCIOCULTURAL/CROSS-CULTURAL

• The study of psychological differences among people living in different cultural groups. 

• One cannot understand people before understanding their origins, environment, and context they grew up in

• INDIVIDUALISM (Personal independence) VS. COLLECTIVISM (Family oriented. dependent): 

EVOLUTIONARY

• Influenced by Darwin and the emphasis on innate, adaptive behavior patterns 

• Application of principles of evolution to explain behavior and psychological processes.